


White Clouds, Blue Tarp

by chicago_ruth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Glompfest, Introspection, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicago_ruth/pseuds/chicago_ruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world has ended, and Merlin tries his best to just get by while the loneliness eats him up. </p>
<p>Modern, post-apocalyptic AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Clouds, Blue Tarp

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2011 glompfest. Thank you to Kiwi for beta-ing.

Merlin remembers a time when it took real effort to avoid seeing people. An apartment with three roommates, in the middle of a busy city, along with five university classes a week and a part time job meant that he was forced to interact with people almost every day.

These days, he counts himself lucky if he can spot another human being in the distance. He never approaches them -- in this environment, it's dog-eat-dog, every man for himself. Or woman, as the case might be; he remembers Sophia, who was friendly and soft and stole half of his supplies while he slept. The hope of companionship isn't worth the pain of betrayal.

Sometimes he thinks he's going to die of loneliness. He talks to the clouds, just to pass the time. He sees dragons up there, wishes he could fly with them and soar to other lands. Is Australia just as badly damaged? Do the people in Japan suffer as he is suffering? He doesn't know, can't know: all communications are gone with the last of the satellites, and most landlines have long since been dismantled for parts.

The only thing that keeps him going is sheer stubbornness. He survived when all of his friends hadn't. He survived when his mother hadn't. He survived when Freya hadn't.

Another day, another struggle to find food.

\--

It's the end of summer -- which these days can mean anything from 40 degree weather to dust storms to torrential rains -- when he spots the kid.

The kid is trying to catch fish in the dried up remains of the Thames, an effort that seems futile to Merlin on the best of days, and is even more useless when it hasn't rained in nearly a month. Merlin has been debating heading west, closer to the river’s source, but the possibility of running into other people is too great. He's carved out an existence here, and he doesn't plan on moving.

Sharing doesn't figure into his plans either, but the kid doesn't look older than ten -- though with the rampant malnutrition, who can say? Either way, Merlin doesn't feel like driving a child off. He approaches the boy, making as much noise as he can to alert the boy of his presence.

"You're not going to find anything," Merlin says. 

The boy frowns and sets his makeshift spear -- a sharpened stick, really -- aside. "I have to find something. My dad's not doing well."

A pang of jealousy passes through Merlin, the thought of having a partner and managing to raise a child even in this terrible environment a sharp reminder of all the things he has lost. All the people he has lost. Had the world not ended, would Freya and Merlin be building their own family now? Yet Merlin never even considered children back then; it was always something that would happen _later_. When he was older, more settled.

Merlin steps closer and crouches down in the hard dirt, next to the kid, and motions for him to do the same. "There's not enough water for fish, you'd have to get near the ocean for that, but if you search," he starts sifting through the mud, "You can sometimes find something." He pulls out an insect of some sort, and the kid smiles at him. He hands it over, doesn't even grimace when the kid pushes the insect into his mouth immediately -- he's eaten worse.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Arthur," he says, still chewing.

Merlin smiles sadly. "Well, Arthur, I would suggest staying away from now on. People here aren't friendly."

Arthur looks at him for a moment, before nodding and getting up. "Thanks for sharing," he says, motioning to the riverbank. "Maybe I'll see you again."

He runs off, in the direction of the sun. Merlin hopes he doesn't get killed.

He tells the sky the story of Arthur, who found Excalibur and brought order back to a land enveloped in chaos. It passes the time.

\--

 

Merlin is staring up at the clouds, trying to whisper words to the dragons he sees up there. _Take me with you_ , he tries to say, but the clouds don't listen. They keep drifting on, oblivious to the suffering below them.

He's dying. He hasn't eaten in a few days, and water has been similarly scarce. He should have known better than to approach that well, should have realized that it was too good to be true. But after so many years, the world should have righted itself. After so many years, humans shouldn't still be fighting for even the basest form of survival.

The bullet wound in his shoulder is bleeding and bleeding, and no matter how hard Merlin tries, he can't get it to stop. It's probably infected by now, if the stink and the pus are any indication.

_I guess it's not loneliness that's going to kill me,_ Merlin thinks to the sky.

He closes his eyes.

\--

When he opens them again, it's to the sight of blue tarp.

For a moment he thinks it's the ocean, but then he hears the faint patter of rain against plastic and the world rights itself. 

Merlin marvels at how tarp is now more valuable than any coin from before the world ended; it's more useful than a scrap of paper or a piece of metal, that's for sure. It's durable enough to have lasted all these years into the apocalypse, and it can keep wind and rain at bay, if tied properly.

The tarp above Merlin looks like it has been set securely and hasn't been moved in a while.

He turns his head to take in his surroundings: several large logs of wood are set out, almost like benches, around what appears to be a cooler. There's a pit in the center with a small fire going, and a large pile of blankets is huddled next to it. 

It looks so much like a _home_ that Merlin feels tears start leaking out of his eyes. He didn't think he'd see so much civilization again, not since the buildings crashed down around him and people started behaving like animals.

He rubs the heel of his hand against his eyes, to stem the tears. When he shifts, so does the blanket on top of him -- no, it's a pelt, a fur pelt, and where in the world did it come from, there are no large mammals to be found anymore. Merlin realizes he's lying in a bed, with a metal frame and everything.

He can't help it: he laughs. 

The bundle of blankets lifts abruptly, revealing a young man with blonde hair. He looks at Merlin, bewildered, and walks over, all the blankets save one falling away. 

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," Merlin replies, though the "s" turns into a hiss of pain when he turns and puts weight on his shoulder. Right. That wasn't a dream; his shoulder is still probably going to fall off.

"I tried to fix you up, but I don't know how. My father -- he said wounds had to be cleaned, I did that, and I wrapped it in a clean bandage, but... " 

Merlin waves him off with his good hand and tries to sit up. That jars his shoulder some more and causes his breathing to turn into panting, but he feels better when he's upright and more at eyelevel with the man. 

"Why did you save me?" he asks. "You could have just taken all of my things and left me to rot."

The man looks utterly dejected. "You don't remember me."

"Should I?"

"No. I guess not." He looks away from Merlin. "A few years ago. You helped me find food by the river."

It takes a moment, but Merlin _does_ remember. He's honestly surprised that the kid from back then has grown up at all, that he managed to survive all this time. He's even done better for himself than Merlin ever did, with the strange home he built for himself.

"Wow. Your name. Um--"

"Arthur."

"Right. I'm Merlin. Thank you, I guess. I..." Words fail him. He knows it's dangerous to let himself get too close to anyone, that for all he knows, Arthur is going to shoot him later and eat him, but even so -- the sheer relief at having somebody to talk to who doesn't want to kill him immediately floods through him and overwhelms him.

Arthur smiles." _Mer_ lin. Interesting. I'd been calling you Sherlock in my head."

"Sherlock? Why Sherlock?" And never mind the fact that Arthur apparently remembers him, despite that incident having taken place so many years ago. How old is Arthur now? How old had he been back then?

"My father used to make up stories for me. My favorites were the ones about this detective, named Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock was brilliant, always solving crimes and saving the day."

Merlin stares for a moment, then can't help laughing. What a strange way to encounter culture again, retold in the words of a boy who grew up after the apocalypse.

"What's so funny?"

"I know the stories of Sherlock Holmes; a man named Arthur Conan Doyle told them to me. Maybe your father knew him too?"

Merlin doesn't ask where Arthur's father is, because he's almost certain he knows how that story ended. He only smiles and listens to Arthur talk about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, wondering how many of the differences in the tales are because of liberal retelling or due to Merlin's own shoddy memory. He hadn't even liked the Sherlock Holmes stories.

\--

Arthur has been as starved for companionship as Merlin has. He doesn't let Merlin leave, just goes out to collect food on occasion -- an assortment of berries and rodents and insects -- and insists on treating Merlin's wound.

And it does heal. Merlin is still in pain, and he knows his shoulder will never be the same again, but he will probably survive. 

They get by.

He corrects some of Arthur's misconceptions, and is surprised at how well versed he is in others. Arthur knows to heat metals in fire to disinfect them, knows not to eat any raw meat, and he does his best to clean his hands before eating. Whoever raised him taught him well.

It turns out the cooler contains medicines. There's an assortment of painkillers, with labels that Arthur painfully tries to read. "My father wanted me to know," Arthur said. "I can write my name, and his name, and my mother's. And I can read what it says on the bottles."

But of course there are no books, so when Merlin writes 'thank you' into the soot of their fire pit, Arthur just stares blankly. Merlin wipes it away quickly, and decides it doesn't matter. Being able to read isn't that important, in the scheme of things. Not anymore.

The only thing that's important is being able to talk. Merlin doesn't know Sherlock Holmes stories, but he knows others that Arthur swallows just as greedily. Merlin does his best to retell Harry Potter -- he leaves out that terrible epilogue, and in his version Harry and Ron find true love with each other -- and tries his hand at Doctor Who.

"These are so different from the ones father used to tell me," Arthur says, always delighted when Merlin fumbles his way through a new story. "There were never any dragons or wizards or aliens in his."

"They aren't real," Merlin says quickly, just in case. "Those are just make-believe."

"I know," Arthur says. "But don't you wish they were?"

Merlin looks out through the pulled back flaps of their tarp-tent, and stares at the clouds. "Yes."

\--

It doesn't surprise Merlin, not really, when Arthur begins sharing the bed with him. Or when Arthur initiates a clumsy kiss.

There are so many objections he should have. He doesn't know how old Arthur is, but he doubts he's much older than sixteen. At most he's eighteen, and Merlin is nearing thirty. The age gap is so wide. Arthur doesn't know anything about the world.

There's no longer a society to look down at them though. There are no other people who can judge them, there are no disappointed parents to face.

Would they have found each other, had the world not ended?

It doesn't matter, Merlin decides. These are the circumstances they're in. There is no way to explain to Arthur why this should be a bad idea, not when Arthur never experienced a life _before_.

There are no dragons or wizards in Merlin's life, but he can still try to build a happy ending. He can still laugh with Arthur, he can still teach him how to move his body in a way that pleases them both, he can still curl up with him and share in the warmth while the rain patters down onto their blue tarp. The tarp is nicer to look at than the clouds.

"Tell me a story," Arthur whispers, half asleep against Merlin's chest.

Merlin lets his fingers card through Arthur's hair. 

He begins: "In a land of myth, in a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young man..."


End file.
